Mix It Up Project Report: Building New Audiences - Multicultural Arts ...

Mix It Up Research Project 2006
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Centre For Leisure Management Research
I’m probably well known in the Greek community for my work because I’ve documented them
and their rituals and customs for over 10 years and I currently have a show touring around
regional Victoria…I can bring a professional look into a community world and vice-versa.
(Photographer)
Learnings from the Mix It Up program were both within institutional and cross-institutional. However, the drivers
of change were the change champions residing within the Arts Centre and Multicultural Arts Victoria. In hindsight,
the dynamic for change was caused by the motivation, commitment and knowledge about the importance of the
success of the project by these people. They performed a leadership and educational role within institutions and
across institutions. The dynamic between these change champions and the teams of people implementing the
project ensured that the bar was raised for quality and collaboration. The accumulated knowledge and
experience of these people was most significant to the success of the project. Future Mix It Up projects would
benefit from the continuation of the highest level of person in both organisations acting as a visible change
champion.
2. Build Relationships between communities and Arts Centre key players
…paying a bit more attention to… the networks that these amazing people have who come on
board… to get the whole thing shaking is obviously what needs to be highlighted and attended
to. (Curator, Music Program)
Building relationships builds trust with both Arts Centre staff and communities involved in the Mix It Up program.
Mix It Up is an innovative program that taps into new veins of creativity within the Arts Centre and the
communities. While another multicultural program, MAMAS1, was bottom-up, Mix It Up is a bottom-up, top-down
and outside-in program. This means that Mix It Up both sought change champions at the top of the Arts Centre
as well as community facilitators within multicultural communities. This approach ensured commitment to the
project was delivered throughout the organisation, and commitment to the project was facilitated in communities.
Such a complex approach needs different sets of relationships to be built in order to thrive. Designing new
programs and partnerships with other organisations and communities fill specific needs of creating social
harmony through the arts or healing racial tensions. Building relationships is therefore an essential, if time
consuming, component of Mix It Up’s success.
1 MAMAS (Multicultural Arts Marketing Ambassadors Scheme) was a program developed to expand culturally diverse
audiences at mainstream events and was supported by the Australia Council.